Genitals Abnormal Genitals?: Trying to sex a new baby guinea pig!

The 2nd picture makes me wanna say it's a male, but the first picture is kind of strange.. When you were pushing above the genitals, did you feel a bump? If you did, then the pig is male. Females have a soft stomach/area above the genitals.

They look like atypical genitals to me. It's just hard to say how atypical from a photo, I'd definitely be interested to here what your vet thinks.

The worry, I guess, with any mammal that falls somewhere in the intersex category and has a variation on the expected urogenital systems, is that it's possible they have streak gonads, which increases their chances of developing cancer, even at a very young age. I guess also, depending on how everything has developed, they may have an increased risk of UTIs, etc.

CavyTV said:

The 2nd picture makes me wanna say it's a male, but the first picture is kind of strange.. When you were pushing above the genitals, did you feel a bump? If you did, then the pig is male. Females have a soft stomach/area above the genitals.

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We'll have to feel her again tomorrow. I'm really hoping she's female because we need a female guinea pig to be a cagemate for our current guinea pig, but we've also already fallen in love with Fluff.

stray hares said:

They look like atypical genitals to me. It's just hard to say how atypical from a photo, I'd definitely be interested to here what your vet thinks.

The worry, I guess, with any mammal that falls somewhere in the intersex category and has a variation on the expected urogenital systems, is that it's possible they have streak gonads, which increases their chances of developing cancer, even at a very young age. I guess also, depending on how everything has developed, they may have an increased risk of UTIs, etc.

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I also think that she is atypical (or that something is wrong with her health) because I can't find any images online that look like her. I'm hoping that if she is atypical, it won't affect her health in any way...I guess I'll have to wait and see what my vet says, but it's stressful to wait until Monday to hear their input. I also have a feeling that they'll say we have to bring her in to check her out and that'll be an extra vet cost. I already spent $56 two weeks ago to check my first guinea pig for illness (she has had whistle-y breathing for a while but they said that she is healthy and it is likely caused by an abnormality in her nasal passages), and this past Friday I had to spend $38 to get Fluff's stool checked for parasites, etc.

If it helps, Fluff is about 10 weeks old. I'm not sure how close that is to being sexually mature (I'm guessing they are sexually mature at 6 months, but that's just a guessed based on the fact that they are considered adults at 6 months old. However, I know that males can get females pregnant before they (the males) are 6 months old, so maybe sexual maturity happens much sooner). But it seems like baby guinea pigs should still have more of a normal genitalia setup at her age than she does.

They're able to reproduce at about 4 weeks for males, shortly after that for females.

Here are some pictures for comparison: www.cavyspirit.com/sexing.htm.

They do look atypical to me, but the acid test will be if you can extrude the penis. If you can do that, it doesn't matter what the genitalia look like, she's male.

Thanks for the input. The cavyspirit website was one of the sites I had gone to to try to find an image that looked like Fluff, but I still don't see any images on there that match what she has. We'll have to hold her tomorrow and see if we can extrude a penis. I'm hoping that we'll find that she is a female because we really want her to be Cookie Dough's cagemate!

The second photo looks like you ARE exposing a penis there. An abnormally shaped penis but still a penis, you can see it appears to be the head of the penis that is abnormally shaped but behind that is the normal shaft and skin that covers the penis.

Here is an image from the guinea lynx page on impaction to compare to.

It's very likely that she's infertile even if she has a penis. You can ask your vet in more detail, but intersex animals (including humans, who are often needlessly operated upon as babies, often without their parents' knowledge- yikes!) - are actually fairly common, and a lot of them lack reproductive capability. Of course, it's better safe than sorry.


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It looks like she might be a boy to me. The penis resembles sort of like what my pig has, a 'cauliflower penis'. This is my thread I made a while ago with pictures of it https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/threads/112803-Boar-penis-cleaning-issues

We tried pressing on her abdomen today and an obvious penis shape didn't extrude, but we are still unsure of her gender because of the way her genitalia looks. We saw a red bump when we pulled up some of her genitalia, which, although that sounds like a penis, looked more like a tumor or some other kind of bad growth. We need to figure out her sex and we are concerned about the possible bump, so we are going to schedule a vet visit for this week and see what they say.

Update:

A vet appointment has been scheduled for this Saturday at 8:30am. We are hoping to get Fluff sexed and checked out. We still see a redness in the genital area that seems worrisome, so we will definitely get that looked at this weekend. We would have loved to get an earlier appointment, but with my work schedule and the popularity of my vet, Saturday was the earliest appointment we could get.

Update:

Great news! Fluff had her vet appointment today and it went well. My vet said that her genitals are definitely abnormal for a guinea pig, so I'm glad that I brought her in to have her sexed and checked out.

My vet looked for various sex markers. He couldn't extrude a penis, he said that there was a small distance between her anus and her genitalia, and he said that if he lifted certain parts of her genitals he could see the hint of a y shape. He also said that there wasn't a bump for testicles or the bump above the genitals that would mark her as a male. So all of those markers are good indicators that she is female. Yay!

My vet said that she is female, but when I brought up the possibility of her being intersex he said that that could be possible. He wasn't well versed in intersex animals but when I brought up the possibility of her being more likely to get UTIs or cancer he said that he could see that being true. He knew that intersex dogs and cattle are usually sterile, and he thought it was possible that the same would be true of Fluff if she were intersex. But he added that since she didn't have anything like a penis there wouldn't be anything for her to insert into a female to cause a pregnancy.

**(Does anyone else know if intersex guinea pigs are usually sterile?)**

So it's looking like Cookie and Fluff are totally okay to share a cage once Fluff is 6 months old.

The only concerns we have to be aware of are related to cleanliness and UTIs (a small concern we have to be watchful for is the development of cancer). He thought that she might be more likely to develop UTIs, so we should be conscious of her behavior and should be on the lookout for signs of this kind of infection. We should be looking for lethargy, frequent urination and urination in small amounts, discoloration of the urination (blood or mucus in urine), and Fluff cleaning her genitals more often than usual. In terms of cleanliness, he thinks the shape of her genitalia makes it much easier for her to be dirty in that area. We will need to give her regular baths and will need to clean out the area with wet cotton balls. I have noticed that she gets much dirtier than other pigs in this area, so regular maintenance will be essential for her.

**Since we will need to give her regular baths (we are thinking of bathing her every other day) and since she has been getting so dirty, we want to find a soap that will be okay to use for her. So far we have not been using soap because all of our soaps are hand soaps and have a fragrance which would likely be bad for her. Does anyone know of a good soap to use for guinea pigs?**

Other details:
Fluff weighed a little over a pound and was a healthy weight.

Fluff looked bright and active, and the vet said that she looked very healthy.

Fluff got her nails clipped today so now she has a healthy length for her nails.

Fluff's hair is very soft and I asked the vet if he thought it could be baby hair and if the fluffiness would go away (we are hoping it will stay soft). He didn't seem to think it was baby hair and that she would stay soft into adulthood.

I have only heard of one other intersex guinea pig, an incident where someone tried to breed their seemingly normal male guinea pig, but he showed very little interest in sows and never impregnated any. The owners ended up having him checked out, and it turned out that his internal anatomy was more like a sow's and his testicles were under-formed, and so he was infertile. Probably a coincidence, but he was also a white pig, like Fluff.

I typically don't use soap when bathing pigs. Mineral oil is recommended when cleaning boars' penises and anal sacs, but that's more applicable to getting into small folds and crevices. I'm sure other owners, especially of longer-haired pigs, have soap recommendations.
Congrats on your healthy baby!

I work as a cytogeneticist (a kind of medical scientist) currently and we identify people as intersex all the time through a couple of different forms of genetics testing, sometimes completely unexpectedly (e.g. older woman comes in for genetic testing to help identify what kind of cancer she has, we identify her as a 46,XY female). It's one of my interest areas, as well as intersex rights (especially for the young babies and kids that have no say in their medical treatment).

Intersex just means that someone doesn't fall into the typical medical definitions of male or female, and there is a wide variety of ways that can manifest. Your little one has atypical genitalia, which are kind of ambiguous, and I guess without knowing anything else about her genetics, or internal reproductive organs, it's hard to say if she has an increased risk of cancer (if she has streak gonads she will have an increased risk). The majority of intersex mammals are infertile.

Your mentioning of her soft baby-like fur makes me wonder if guinea pig hair typically losses its baby-like texture due to hormones (or certain hormones). I have no evidence to back this up but I will do some research and get back to you! The fact that she may have very soft hair for the rest of her life makes me think she has atypical expression of hormones, which also adds to the expectation that she'd be infertile.

stray hares said:

Your mentioning of her soft baby-like fur makes me wonder if guinea pig hair typically losses its baby-like texture due to hormones (or certain hormones). I have no evidence to back this up but I will do some research and get back to you! The fact that she may have very soft hair for the rest of her life makes me think she has atypical expression of hormones, which also adds to the expectation that she'd be infertile.

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That would be an interesting reason that she has such soft hair.

I have had two other guinea pigs (an American tri-color satin and an American crested satin [who was white with two shades of brown]) and neither of them had soft hair. I figured that was just them being of the satin variety. Fluff is an American crested, and although I originally put her in the satin category, maybe she is a mix of satin and abyssinian or something and that is what has led to her having fluffy but short hair.

jaycriae said:

I typically don't use soap when bathing pigs. Mineral oil is recommended when cleaning boars' penises and anal sacs, but that's more applicable to getting into small folds and crevices. I'm sure other owners, especially of longer-haired pigs, have soap recommendations.
Congrats on your healthy baby!

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I think we need to use some kind of soap or cleanser for Fluff because that area is getting particularly dirty and water alone isn't washing off urine and debris. Also, Fluff actually does have a lot of folds and crevices, which is a major cause of the cleanliness issue. So maybe mineral oil would be a great thing to use to clean her! Where do you get that? And is there a specific kind/brand that I should get?

I wouldn't use mineral oil on her genitalia. It causes stuff to stick to it, and because a sow's urethra is so short, it could create an increased risk of bladder infections.

I also wouldn't use soap that often. Keep the hair closely trimmed around her rear end, and just put her butt in warm water and wash it off. Dry it well, and keep an eye out for excessive dry skin.

bpatters said:

I wouldn't use mineral oil on her genitalia. It causes stuff to stick to it, and because a sow's urethra is so short, it could create an increased risk of bladder infections.

I also wouldn't use soap that often. Keep the hair closely trimmed around her rear end, and just put her butt in warm water and wash it off. Dry it well, and keep an eye out for excessive dry skin.

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Okay good to know. It seemed like we should use soap because the area has been getting very dirty and brownish (I think from being close to poop) and it is difficult to wash off debris with just water. Maybe cotton balls will help more with this. I am buying some tomorrow because I didn't have any to use today.

If we were to sometimes use soap, what would you recommend?